everyone is going to tell you to not get free hosting. but i think its a good way to get use to the scripts that you are going to want to be using, for free (as long as the scripts are free!)
i used
www.freepimphost.com before i bought a plan at a different hosting company.
i would suggest you try it out, they dont have cpanel or anything like that, but you can install comus and a couple other scripts on there and test them out so you can get to know the scripts and start a template without accuring hosting costs.